never obsess over hair or clothes or pimples
or whether he’s liked or how to disappear
instead he spends half the morning in my lap
& all night pressed up against me in my bed
you might as well say our bed since I’m never
in it without him, except for brief forays
to eat or wrestle with the other cat
or investigate a sudden noise (might be
a mouse), if I stroke him in the night
he slithers up to my face, opens his salmon-
scented mouth & purrs with a sound
like a broken water pump, kneads my neck
with sharp claws, he knows he’s perfect
even without algebra, a foreign language
& an intramural sport, for the hour before
climbing into my lap each morning
he roams the house crying for everything
he doesn’t have (good grades, better
parents, a girl friend, spending money)
I scratch his ears, offer him food, tell him
just wait, someday you’ll be old like me
then you’ll have something to complain about
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